Kota Bharu

Our apartment/Kath going hijab style to blend in (not!)

We got the 9am bus from Cherating which didn't turn up till after 9.30 plus it wasn't going to stop except for us frantically waving at the driver to do so! The journey to Kota Bharu was 7hrs with not a lot of stops (hence some crossed leg moments) so we arrived at 4.30pm busting for a loo and to find our accommodation. Luckily this was only around the corner from the bus station - Daz booked an apartment which was nicely kitted out with a double & single bed, tv with cable, kitchenette with fridge & microwave and a decent sized bathroom with hot water. This was luxury compared to some of the other places we had stayed so far plus we had a fridge!

Central market - check out the decor! Don't smell the fish market next door though.....phew!

Dried fish anyone? This is everywhere, fish all stinky and not very appetising

Well in a nutshell, Kota Bharu is a very big city which is very muslim (you can only buy property here if you were born within the state) and it's not really cut out for tourists (especially those who like booze!) as not a lot to do or see here.  We stayed 6 nights in the end because our onward travel plans changed and it was easy due to the comfort of the apartment but getting food we liked (vegetarian) and beer (cheapest was over £3 for a large bottle!) was extremely challenging most days.
We visited the tourist info office and met some old camp local guy who kept saying 'lemon squeezy' and 'lovely jubbly' which was irritating after 5 minutes. We went on to visit a cultural show he organised (which was free) to watch a traditional Malaysian big drum display (Daz even had a go - just like Animal off the muppet show) as well as some sort of martial arts display like a cross between wrestling and tai chi - called Silat. The weird thing was they had a 1/2 hr break for prayer time so we decided to bugger off as we'd seen plenty at that point.

Big drum display at the cultural show - oh my ears!

Apart from that, we looked around some museums (ceremonial, old palace, traditional craft village) and cruised around some shopping malls (air conditioned!).  We visited Central Market, avoiding the fish market!, and bought some salad and fruit. There was a massive Tesco store on the edge of town so we also had a trolley dash around it to stock up on food at the apartment (sorry no booze aisle here!).
We bought bus tickets to our next stop - Dabong and hoped it would be a good place for walks and things to do/see. Packing our rucksacks up again, we headed off on the bus in the afternoon not really knowing how this would turn out..............